The Shala Daily

There’s a real paradox in the piece Lauren Mechling wrote: young people are less inclined to drink, yet they still long for the electric communal evening that parties provide. The Maze — a dry members‑only club in Manhattan — and a constellation of sober‑influencer personalities show us another path: celebration without alcohol, intentionally curated community, and a playful reimagining of ritual. What’s striking isn’t abstention as austerity but sobriety as style — a way to preserve all the social shimmer while keeping attention, intention, and health in the foreground.

As a teacher of practice, I notice how this maps onto the values we explore on the mat: choice, boundary, and joyful presence. The people in Mechling’s story aren’t merely refusing a substance; they’re redesigning the social scaffolding that made drinking the default. They build rituals (resolution boards at midnight), curate environments (a dry marble bar), and enlist community support (coaching, events, mutual accountability). These are deliberate practices of habit redesign — and they work because they replace an old ritual with a new set of cues and communal reinforcements.

There are ethical questions here too: the commercialization of sobriety; the pressure to present recovery as glamour; and the ways influencer culture can make complex healing look like a boutique lifestyle. Mechling quotes voices that worry about glamorizing abstinence in a way that erases relapse and struggle. The generous take: when people craft safer social spaces, love and care can grow in unexpected ways — but humility and service must remain part of the work.

A small practice: host a sober‑curious evening. Invite friends, pick a theme, design a mocktail menu, and craft two shared practices — a 5‑minute guided reflection and a collective resolution ritual. Notice the texture of conversation without alcohol. Where does presence deepen? Where does social rhythm shift? This isn’t about moralizing; it’s about experimenting with different ways to make life lively.